Even if Trump’s belief in election fraud was mistaken (an open question, as we shall discuss), to all appearances, his belief was an honest one. In an interview in September with Meet the Press, Trump maintained his view that he actually won the 2020 presidential election. “The former president said he didn’t listen to his attorneys who told him he had lost the election because he didn’t respect them and that he ‘respected many others that said the election was rigged…I was listening to different people, and when I added it all up, the election was rigged,’ Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. He added, ‘You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened.’”
But an inability to establish what was in the mind of Donald Trump doesn’t stop Jack Smith – Trump’s belief was not mistaken, it was false! Why? Because people in the Justice Department, some lawyers and some courts told him so!
In effect, Smith’s indictment seeks to establish Trump’s mens rea through his actus reus – that is, his allegedly guilty mind is reflected by his allegedly guilty actions. Proceeding from the premise that Trump couldn’t possibly believe that he’d been robbed of the Presidency, Smith outlines a series of actions taken by the former President “in his criminal efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election and retain power.”
For instance, Trump “said that there had been a suspicious vote dump in Detroit, Michigan… stating, ‘In Detroit, there were hours of unexplained delay in delivering many of the votes for counting. The final batch did not arrive until four in the morning and—even though the polls closed at eight o’clock. So they brought it in, and the batches came in, and nobody knew where they came from.'”
According to Smith, “(o)n December 1, (2020) the Defendant raised his Michigan vote dump claim with the Attorney General, who responded that what had occurred in Michigan had been the normal votecounting process and that there was no indication of fraud in Detroit…(d)espite this, the next day, the Defendant made a knowingly false statement that in Michigan, ‘[a]t 6:31 in the morning, a vote dump of 149,772 votes came in unexpectedly. We were winning by a lot. That batch was received in horror. Nobody knows anything about it. . . . It’s corrupt. Detroit is corrupt. I have a lot of friends in Detroit. They know it. But Detroit is totally corrupt.'”
Was this a “knowingly false” statement? Or can it be demonstrated that Donald Trump had a basis to believe that the Attorney General was wrong, and there was a “suspicious vote dump” in Detroit, Michigan?
According to the Gateway Pundit, “a wide variety of eyewitnesses…observed fraud just in Michigan. Many of those observers mentioned a very suspicious 3:30AM Biden Ballot Dump of votes in Detroit at the TCF Center where absentees were being counted…Detroit elections worker whistleblower Jessy Jacob testified… that there were no ballots left to process at the Detroit Department of Elections by 8:30PM on election night… Every single witness the Gateway Pundit has spoken with said that there were no ballots left to count and tabulate by around 9:00PM on election night at the TCF Center. Many left the location because there was nothing left to do…”
Then, “(Security Camera footage shows a) white van clearly delivering ballots (at about 3:30 AM)”, an event confirmed by “City of Detroit Senior Advisor to the City Clerk Chris Thomas.” However, Thomas “claims that only 16,000 ballots arrived in the 3:30AM Biden Ballot Dump.”
Thomas’ information is partially supported by The Edison data from Michigan, which “show(s) voter results in real-time, a service offered to media outlets.” However, “the Edison data for Michigan shows a major spike of late ballots in Wayne County/Detroit…Michigan added 149,000 votes for Biden at 6:31am the day after the election, where 94% of the votes were for Joe Biden. Where did those votes come from if most of the other counties had already reported their final totals by 8:00PM on election night?”
A good question. Here is how the Associated Press answers; “The 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day in Michigan was for voters to cast their ballots, not for those ballots to be delivered or counted. In big cities such as Detroit, it can take several hours for ballots to go through security checks before being sent to counting locations. That process is customary and legal, according to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office…(t)he conservative website The Gateway Pundit is using a new video to recycle old misinformation about Michigan’s presidential election on Nov. 3…(b)ut this article and video don’t show proof of fraud. These false claims are based on a misunderstanding of the ballot deadline and how ballot deliveries work in large jurisdictions such as Detroit.”
The AP admits that “(i)t’s true that a white van used by the city arrived at the TCF Center to deliver ballots in the early hours of the morning on Nov. 4, according to a sworn affidavit from Christopher Thomas, a former state elections chief who worked at the TCF Center on election night,” but asserts that “there was nothing fraudulent or illegal about that. ‘Early in the morning on Wednesday, November 4, approximately 16,000 ballots were delivered in a white van used by the city,’ Thomas said in his affidavit. ‘The ballots delivered to the TCF Center had been verified by the City Clerk’s staff prior to delivery in a process prescribed by Michigan law.'”
Sure enough, “(i)n a Nov. 13 order, Wayne County Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Kenny declined to stop the certification of Detroit-area votes, ruling that allegations of fraud at the TCF Center on election night were ‘incorrect and not credible.’”
It sounds reasonable that the deadline for votes to be registered at the poll is 8 PM. It also sounds reasonable that it might take some time for those ballots to travel from the polling place to the counting location. But this location was the TCF Center – where ABSENTEE ballots were being processed, not ballots cast on Election Day. What explains a delay of more than 7 hours (from 8 PM to 3:30 AM) to transfer 16,000 Absentee ballots to the TCF Center – ballots that should have already been at the Center, ready to count once the polls had closed?
Further, what about the Edison data which shows 149,000 additional votes for Biden by 6:31 AM? If there were only 16,000 votes on that 3:30 AM van, where did the other 133,000 votes for Biden come from? The AP doesn’t say. Instead, they assure the reader that their article “is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.”
Think back to the statement Trump gave that Jack Smith alleges to be “knowingly false.” “At 6:31 in the morning, a vote dump of 149,772 votes came in unexpectedly” the former President stated. As we have discussed, by 6:31 AM there is evidence that “Michigan added 149,000 votes for Biden at 6:31am the day after the election.” Trump calls this a “vote dump,” and then goes on to say “Detroit is totally corrupt.”
Other than Trump’s claim that “we were winning by a lot” (which is highly unlikely in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, Michigan), where is the “knowing falsehood” in the former President’s statements? Where does the President evidence anything but a sincere belief that those votes came in late, after the polls had closed, and that this was a corrupt action?
Even if its circumstantial at best, isn’t there some evidence that 16,000 absentee ballots taking 7 hours to reach a counting location, and another 133,000 votes showing up by 6:30 in the morning, is unusual, and could lead one to believe that fraudulent activity had occurred?
Under Jack Smith’s theory of his case, is Donald Trump required to believe his Attorney General when he states “that there was no indication of fraud in Detroit?” Or is Trump entitled to his own opinion, based on the facts discussed above?
In fact, Trump is not alone is this opinion. According to NBC, in June of 2023, “A new Monmouth poll finds 30% of respondents believe Biden’s victory came thanks to voter fraud…(t)hat share is virtually unchanged in Monmouth’s polling since November of 2020 – the share of Americans who believe it remained between 32% and 29%… Virtually all Democrats (93%) say Biden won the election fairly, a view shared by 58% of independents. Just 21% of Republicans believe Biden won his election fair and square, while 68% say he won ‘due to voter fraud.’ That’s very similar to Monmouth’s findings in the weeks after the 2020 election, when 18% of Republicans, 67% of independents and 95% of Democrats said Biden’s election victory was fair.”
Of course, NBC is appalled by this result, saying it “highlights the disconnect on one of the foundational issues facing American democracy… (t)here remains no evidence that widespread fraud substantially affected the outcome of the 2020 election.”
So then why do people persist in believing that the election was stolen from Trump? Why does Trump?
Maybe because, there is some evidence to support this belief, despite the efforts by much of the press to put this story to rest. Maybe, under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, we also have a right to believe what we want to believe – and Donald Trump is included with those holding that right.
On its face, then, Jack Smith’s attempt to prosecute Donald Trump for the thoughtcrime of not believing the “experts” and his lawyers is a threat to the rights of the rest of us to believe what we wish – even if it turns out to be wrong or mistaken – and especially if we know in our hearts that its true.
Judge John Wilson served on the bench in NYC
Illustration: Pixabay